The Cage of Freedom / La jaula de la libertad (1982)

Welded steel / Acero soldado

In addition to Loops, Jorge Luis created this installation for “Art Across the Park” with the intention of hanging it from the limb of a tree in Central Park. However, the artist was unable to secure the equipment to properly install the sculpture and the plan was abandoned. There are two opposing concepts incorporated into the work: freedom and imprisonment. The bottom of the cage is left open to present the idea of either concept as relative, while its bars create the false illusion of entrapment.

There is also an oblique reference to Plato’s Theory of Forms, in which the cage represents the body, and the idea of freedom—although “trapped” by artificial constraint—is a representation of the soul. Here, the artist stumbles upon a figurative loophole that visually articulates the impossibility of ensnaring the soul within a proper cage.